


Pedestals

by SongAboutExiles



Category: Lost Souls - Poppy Z. Brite
Genre: Graveyard Sex, M/M, Miz Deliverance would probably just make them molasses cookies and tell them to sort themselves out, Rough Sex, almost dubcon if you actually think Ghost capable of such a thing, cornered steve, ghost isn't that sweet, sometimes you gotta rip off the scab and it ain't pretty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-14
Updated: 2013-11-14
Packaged: 2018-01-01 11:13:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1044159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SongAboutExiles/pseuds/SongAboutExiles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's hard work, being a paragon, and Ghost is fucking exhausted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pedestals

**Author's Note:**

> Set post Lost Souls.

“You objectify me.” Ghost stretched his lanky body haphazardly across the bench he was lying on, staring up into the moonlight dance of tree limbs in the cemetery. 

“I...what?” The weed was good, but not so good that Steve suddenly could speak Ghost with any real fluency. He passed the joint over, and Ghost reached for it without breaking his skyward gaze. 

“You see me as a thing. An archetype. A madonna. An object.” Now Ghost had Steve’s full attention, and he could feel the other man’s gaze struggle into focus on his face. 

“Why would you say that? You’re my best friend. You’re not some...thing. You’re Ghost.” There was a deep twist in Steve’s rough voice that sent chills down Ghost’s spine. Chills that somehow, like magic, turned to embers in the pit of his belly. 

“Because if I’m an object on a pedestal, then you can just keep from fucking me forever.” Bold words, and one might have tried to blame it on the cannabis curling through his nerves and into his brain. But that wouldn’t be true. Ghost felt the words were a volcano, fired by the tectonic plates of his and Steve’s lives intertwined, rubbing with a friction that was like to set the world on fire. If only he could find the words, find the path through Steve’s tortured mind, to the sweet relief of cataclysm. 

Oh, but would an eruption on that magnitude destroy everything in its path? Somehow, and spirits help him, Ghost just did not care.Which diversionary tactic would Steve take now? Laugh it off and blame it on the pot, a snort-and-eyeroll ‘Ghost is a weirdo’ maneuver, or maybe an edge of ‘God, you’re so fucking gross sometimes.’ 

“Ghost, did you start without me back home? Because you aren’t just garden-variety fucked up if you think that.” Steve went for a chuckle, but it died in the back of his chest and burst through his chapped lips like a papery rasp. 

Door number one, then. Ghost sat up on the bench and looked down at Steve on the ground, light eyes peering through his white-blond hair. “No. I just want you to stop.” 

“Stop...objectifying...you.” Steve took it slow over the big word, but Ghost wasn’t surprised by that. Steve hated to look stupid, and no matter how many times Ghost told him he wasn’t, it never sank in. “Because I secretly want to fuck you? Because I’m secretly a faggot?” 

“Yes. Yes, you do, and I hate it when you use that word. By the way.” It dripped off Steve’s tongue with an alarming ease, and if he wasn’t so sure, SO sure, that he was right, Ghost would be a little frightened of him right now. A somehow-elegant shrug divested Ghost of the ratty, too-big tee shirt he’d been wearing, leaving his narrow chest bare to the cool fall air. In the full moon light, he did seem ethereal, untouchable, holy.

“Fuck? Or faggot?” Steve’s eyes betrayed him, devoured every inch of that translucent skin.

“Faggot.” Ghost almost relished the word in his mouth, though, knowing that his fearlessness in uttering it would be suitably alarming to Steve. “You say fuck all day, like it’s your religion.” 

“Look, it...doesn’t matter if that’s what you’re like. Whatever. I just...am not like that.” Steve’s rough voice sent another river of chills casccading down Ghost’s spine, and brought tiny, rosy nipples to full erection so fast he barely suppressed the moan. “Put your goddamned shirt on, you’ll catch a cold.” 

“No. Do you think I’m a virgin, Steve? Do you think no hands have ever touched my skin but yours, no mouth other than yours?” The two kisses Steve could never forget. Ghost knew they haunted him.

“Has someone been messing with you? Who?” Steve would kill him, whoever he was, or beat him till his face was a bloody pulp. This was an easy out for Steve--anger, rage, bludgeoning repression so fierce that it was practically self-immolation. 

“Not you. People who are very much not-Steve.” One nearly translucent, delicate hand slid down Ghost’s narrow chest, between peaked nipples, chipped purple sparkle nail polish a stark contrast to elegant skin, until his fingers played with the button of his worn, frayed, too-big jeans. 

“Not...not me. Ghost, you need to stop this shit right now.” Steve sat up abruptly, the glitter in his dark eyes dangerous. Too bad for him that Ghost wasn’t afraid. Not even a little, even though on some deep, animal level he knew he should be. 

“Where exactly do I cross the line, Steve?” Beloved. “Was it back there when I took my shirt off?” A quick pluck of deft fingers slipped the button free, and another parted the zipper. The faintest dusting of pale hair in that gap, almost invisible, and the ruddy-pink base of Ghost’s hard cock trapped to one side. “Is it now?” 

Ghost felt the giddy mix of pleasure-pain-fear swell until it was a dull roar in his head. “No, I know..the line is this.” The jeans were too big even buttoned and zipped. It’s nothing (everything) to just step out of them, cock freed to slap against his concave belly. “It’s my cock, my body, and how much it wants you. That’s the line.” 

“You’re damned right it is. Jesus, Ghost, this is fucking crazy. Get. Dressed.” The words sound like they hurt to say, ground out past suddenly clenched teeth and fisted hands. 

Again, “No. Look at me. Look at me like I know you want to.” 

“Why do you have to push me so goddamned hard, Ghost? Is it because you know I’d never fucking leave you?” _Poor Steve. Not even hearing himself, as usual._

“There’s worse things than being left. There’s the endless ache of not-knowing, Steve. The even worse ache of knowing-but-not-touching.” The moon was Ghost’s natural light, his perfect resonation, his elemental self. He was never more ‘Ghost’ than under a heavy, full, delectable-looking moon.

“Yeah, there’s knowing that I’ll hurt you. That’s a hell of a lot worse than any of those things.” Steve’s eyes were glued to Ghost’s slim, silver-limned form, as if he could touch with gaze what fingers were forbidden. 

“How do you think you’ll hurt me, Steve?” Ghost knew the conversation shifted, even if Steve had yet to discern the fact. They’d moved right on past outraged denial to rationalization. Steve had just proved Ghost’s point. 

“You know. Like I hurt Ann. I ain’t proud of what I did to her, and if I did that to you, I’d fucking cut my hands off.” Ghost almost, almost winced at how raw Steve’s voice sounded. But no pity. Not yet. Tonight, he must be merciless.

“Would you cheat on me? Would you leave me?” Ghost cocked his head. Surely Steve would acknowledge how sideways this conversation had gone for him. Surely. And yes, Steve’s eyes flew open wider at that.

“What?” No way in hell to answer those questions. Ghost half-expected him to say that yes, he would cheat with every piece of ass that came his way, that he would leave him for the first pretty pair of tits that passed by. It would be bullshit, of course, but a not wholly unexpected move in this dangerous chess game. 

“I think you heard me. Is that how you would hurt me? Or would you bruise my flesh? Grab too tight with your greedy, rough hands, shove too deep into me too fast, crush my lips against my teeth? Would you bite? Bite deep, till you tasted blood? Would I wear your marks for days after you rutted me like an animal?” Biting shouldn’t be a turn on for either of them after what they’d been through, but...but. 

“Yes!” Steve’s lip curled with the snarled word. “Just look at you! So fucking perfect.” And him so fucking dirty--Ghost knew. He knew.

And just like that, they arrived as though by clockwork exactly where they’d begun. “You. Objectify. Me.” 

“Shit.” From snarling to half-sobbing. 

“Now that we have that out of the way…” Ghost danced in closer, into the reach of Steve’s arms should he choose to reach out. He was betting on it--would wager his goddamned immortal soul on it. “What if I told you that I wanted it? Wanted every bruise, every bite, every ugly word that will come out of your mouth. Call me your whore, call me your slut. Your bitch. Bend me over right here and shove your big dick into me.”

“You don’t know what you’re fucking saying,” Steve ground out again, visibly shaken, shaking. And, Ghost searched out in the moonlight to confirm, hard as the carved granite he was barely managing to sit still on. 

“I know exactly what I’m saying, but if you doubt me…” A picture’s worth a thousand words, but sometimes those are words that do not come easily to the lips. _Or even to the mind._ Ghost kept his eyes locked on Steve’s as he crawled back on the soft grave grass and spread his pale thighs wide, hips canting up to show...everything. “I slicked myself up before I came out here with you.” Maybe he should feel ashamed, but he just...didn’t. Shame was a language Ghost didn’t understand.

“Fuck. Jesus fucking Christ, Ghost.” Steve’s movement off the graveside bench was slow, careful, full of a self control that Ghost was very sure he was forcing on himself. The decrepit stone angel watching over these old bones cast a moonshadow over porcelain skin. 

“Yes. YES, God, yes. Fuck. Please.” Begging, now that was a language Ghost was finding himself fluent in. Fuck, please, anything as long as Steve touched him. And it would be a bonus, of course, if Steve kept him on his back so he could see the man he loved so much, but if not, well. Steps. This was one step.

Apparently, a step that ended with a still-clothed Steve crawling on top of him, shaking like a goddamned leaf and finding Ghost’s mouth with his own, messy and rough and yes, hard, with those chapped lips scratching against his, and an insistent tongue forcing in with a muscular hunger just this side of obscene. No, if Ghost were honest, it was more than obscene. Vulgar, unseemly, a thing of violent paroxysms of need and he loved every moment of it. Especially, Ghost loved the moment when he was finally able to catch that brutish tongue and suck on it hard right back, hard enough to ache, and better yet, hard enough to make Steve moan helplessly.

In fact, Steve was pretty damn useless at the moment, what with trying to crawl into Ghost mouth first, so Ghost took matters into his own hands, reaching down to wrench open the worn leather of Steve’s belt and pull and push until his feet can snag the denim and shove it past Steve’s hips. His bony ankles pushed into Steve’s ass, and he begged inarticulately into the man’s mouth as the hot thickness of his cock trailed a slick path up into his cleft. 

How to do this if Steve is too far gone to actually get his dick where it belongs? Finally Ghost just writhed, wrenching his ass up and down till he felt the broad head catch at his slick hole, enough to make him pull with his legs. With a desperate tug the first few inches slammed home inside him and he thought for a moment that he would just pass out with the white hot bliss of it. 

Steve cried out like he was broken and burrowed deeper, heedlessly, the burn making Ghost’s eyes water. Not for one millisecond, though, could he bring himself to feel one ounce of regret. For the first time in his life he finally felt right. Not crazy Ghost or weird Ghost or that stupid faggot girly boy with the painted nails and lipgloss. No, he felt like a lover. A beloved. Half of a whole with the only person who’s stood by him no matter what. 

If that ain’t love...Ghost didn’t want to know what was.

Once Steve was balls-deep in Ghost, he knew what to do. Of course he did, it was pure, blind instinct to rut, to thrust, and Ghost met every jerky jolt of Steve’s hips with one of his own, forcing more and more, deeper and deeper. Meeting Steve’s violence with his own ferocity, and oh Steve would be so surprised, after, that this beast of a thing was hiding inside sweet, gentle, fey Ghost this whole time. 

_Because Steve doesn’t fucking pay attention._

And sure, Ghost knew Steve’s bruises would be decorating his skin for at least the next week, but Steve will be carrying some of Ghost’s, too. 

Steve’s calloused hands reach down to grip his narrow hips hard, pinning him to the ground as he fucked that seemingly fragile body until Ghost simply surrendered. Surrender brought with it release, that cataclysm Steve had so feared and Ghost had so anticipated, every bit as intense as the slow-burn friction of tectonic plates. His eyes rolled back in his head and the world lost its shape and form and color for a long, long span of heartbeats as he rode it out, aware of his seed spilling between them, of Steve’s filling him deep, of an impossible tangle of emotion and sensation that just...simply stole his conscious mind away.

He wasn’t using it anyway.

As they rode the slippery grey outland of post-orgasmic haze, Ghost let his eyes drift so he could see..see the roiling miasma of conflicting feelings swirling around Steve, see the bright thread of love coiling inside Steve’s chest, reaching out, and he let his fingers play in the space where those filaments of Steve met his, encouraging them to just tangle right up together. Like playing a harp, where the strings are impossibly beautiful and delicate razor wire. 

“Playin’ me like a fiddle.” Those long-feared first words struck Ghost as ambiguous. 

“No, just...feeling you. Us. It’s so beautiful, Steve. I wish you could see it.” How ‘us’ became a thing with a life of its own.

“This is beautiful?” He’d just fucked his best friend in the dirt in a cemetery, and none too gently at that. 

“I think the word is...’exquisite.’” Ghost wasn’t deterred by Steve’s skepticism--he never was “Just don’t push me away and try to pretend this never happened.” Now that...that would be ugly.

“I…” Steve pulled his hips back, leaving Ghost empty and cold. “What...what does this make me?” If he kept it up? If you were lovers? What he really wanted to ask, Ghost knew, was “does this make me a faggot?” His father’s fucking hideous head reared itself every goddamned day, and he swore to god that one day he’d get Steve to fuck him on Daddy’s grave. And Steve, still so desperate to put everything in its box.

“It makes you mine.” Again, Ghost would not be deterred. He sat up and wrapped thin arms around Steve’s shoulders from behind head resting on a broad shoulder. “And it makes me yours. And...Steve. That’s enough.” 

Steve turned to him, angle a bit awkward, eyes softer than Ghost had ever seen them. “Yours. Mine.” Two simple, one-syllable words. "Ghost...haven't we always been that?

"Of course we have. Since the day you hoisted me up out of the dirt on the playground instead of joining in. I saw you. I **saw. you.** And that was it."

"I...will never understand how you looked at that little monster, at me now, at me five minutes ago, see me for what I am, and...still..."

"Still crave you in every cell of my body? Still want to find some way to shove us together no matter the cost?" Ghost could understand the confusion. He'd always understood Steve's confusion. When you grow up getting smacked around by huge, terrifying, angry drunk men, it was a natural confusion. What is love, even, if it doesn't come with pain? What is it even worth?

Steve shuddered like he could remember every punch, even though Ghost had not said that part out loud, and he turned his eyes up at the tree, the darkness, the moon. "I just wanted so much more for you than this." His voice was so low it was nearly inaudible.

"Steve, listen to this and understand it, because it's important. It's something you need to learn about me, and about people." Ghost pushed Steve gently back to the ground, and straddled his hips, leaning forward to let his hair curtain their faces. "You don't get to make my choices for me. You don't know what's best for me. I do." 

"I want this to be what's best for you." Here in this little world, comprised of Ghost, Steve could admit it, even if only in the smallest of whispers.

"Some day, you'll be screaming that at the world." Ghost knew it as surely as he knew anything about this man. He knew how fierce Steve's love was, how undeniable, how brutal and beautiful.

The breathed-out laugh was beautiful, in a night of beautiful things, Ghost would almost have to count it his absolute favorite. It made him smile, and then Steve's rough-skinned hands were cupping his face, and bringing his mouth down for a kiss that wasn't full of teeth, the first of many choices that Steve Finn would make, after the one Ghost made for him.


End file.
